Persons of interest
Three Tramps
Three individuals, known as the "Three Tramps," were taken into custody shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy. Found in a boxcar during a search of the railroad yard behind the TSBD, the three were photographed being taken to the Dallas Sheriff's office for questioning. Conspirators have maintained for decades the three tramps were not closely guarded by police and their appearance does not indicate homelessness. With the exception of the third tramp in the photo, whose trousers are dirty and unkempt, they do appear clean shaven and relatively well dressed, but records indicate the three spent the previous night in a shelter, showered, ate supper, and were given clean clothes.
The allegation that the three were not closely guarded is questionable considering the officers carried shotguns and, with the assumption that the three were checked for weapons at the time of their discovery in the boxcar, there was probably no thought of flight or fight among the three detainees. However, the most curious allegation against the tramps remains their identity.
Records released by the Dallas Police Department in 1989 identified the men as Gus Abrams, Harold Doyle, and John Gedney. The conspiracy community maintained the individuals were possibly involved in the assassination. The short tramp was said to resemble E. Howard Hunt while the second tramp in the accompanying picture was said to be CIA operative, Frank Sturgis. The possibility of a Tramp's connection to the CIA sparked the interest of New Orleans District Attorney, Jim Garrison, who siezed upon this new "evidence" and presented it to the American people as fact on the basis of the similar facial features between the tramps and Hunt and Sturgis. Frankly, the Tramps look more like actors Marlon Brando, Tim Robbins, and Junior Samples from Hee Haw.
Others joined in the chorus of conspiracy to link the tramps with the assassination. One theory suggested that the old tramp was named Chauncey Marvin Holt. Holt, interviewed in 1991 by John Craig, Phillip Rogers, and Gary Shaw, indicated he had a close association with underworld figures, anti Castro Cubans, and the CIA. This interview, like many of the conspiracy tales, appears designed to make money for the principals rather than report the truth.
Tramps taken in for questioning
Edward Lansdale
Major General Edward Lansdale was an Air Force officer who served in the Office of Strategic Services and the CIA. He was an integral member of the CIA backed suppression of the Philippine Hukbalalhap rebellion, a communist supported peasant revolt in Luzon following the end of World War 2, which earned him considerable notice among the clandestine operations community and resulted in his involvement in Viet Nam during the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem.
Lansdale was a colorful individual who, some suggest, was a member of the Air Force by pay alone and received his instructions from the CIA. Lansdale circulated among the leaders of Southeast Asian countries with ease, was a close associate of Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay and believed that communism could be defeated by outthinking, not by bombing and conventional warfare.
Lansdale was a pioneer in the use of psychological warfare. During the Huk rebellion, Landale took advantage of primitive beliefs among the Huks and circulated rumors of the presence of vampires in the Luzon jungle. A captured Huk guerrilla was murdered by cutting two holes in his neck, his blood drained, and left in the jungle for the Huks to see, a victim of a vampire attack. The Huks fled the region.
After the installment of the Diem government in Viet Nam, Lansdale was a close advisor to President Diem and was among the inner circle of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's staff during the Kennedy administration. Lansdale retired from the Air Force in November 1963 and, according to Leroy Prouty, orchestrated the Kennedy assassination.
Here is a link to Prouty's statement surrounding Lansdale's alleged presence in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.
Maj Gen Edward Lansdale
General Lansdale, according to Leroy Prouty and other conspirators, was in Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination. They point to a picture taken of the Three Tramps which purportedly shows Lansdale in the background. Prouty did, indeed, know Lansdale, but admitted that the man in question could have been "hundreds of other men." Further, Prouty, according to Lansdale biographer, Max Boot, was so paranoid that Lansdale sent him back to the Air Force from CIA operations.
Perhaps Prouty bore some malice towards Lansdale or his claims are true. In either case, both men are dead and we are left with one man's claim against the other.
David Ferrie
Without question, the most unusual character surrounding the Kennedy assassination is David Ferrie. According to the House Select Committee's examination of Ferrie's life, he was a complex individual. Ferrie, a devout Roman Catholic, studied to enter the priesthood but left for "emotional instability" reasons. Ferrie did obtain a Batchelor's degree in philosophy and a doctorate degree in psychology from an unaccredited school in Italy. He was fond of referring to himself as "Dr. Ferrie."
Ferrie was considered a bright individual. He obtained a pilot's license and eventually flew for Eastern Airlines for ten years. He was considered a good pilot by his peers, but his strange personal habits caused his dismissal. He was sacked from Eastern Airlines after two arrests on moral charges. His proclivity for taking liberties with boys followed him throughout his life.
Ferrie's personal appearance was as strange as the man. He suffered from a condition that caused his hair to fall out but his remedy was a laughable homemade toupee and glued-on eyebrows, accessories that detracted from rather than improved his appearance.
David Ferrie's most enduring legacy remains his association with Lee Harvey Oswald. PBS's 1993 program "Frontline" showed a photograph of a fifteen-year-old Oswald with a group of Civil Air Patrol cadets at a cookout in company with their instructors, one of which was David Ferrie. The photograph cast doubt on Ferrie's claim that he never met Oswald, however, there is no evidence they met after 1955, after Oswald's short stint in the Civil Air Patrol in New Orleans.
David Ferrie
Most of the controversy surrounding David Ferrie comes from three sources, Judyth Vary Baker, former New Orleans District Attorney, Jim Garrison, and Oliver Stone. Baker claimed that Oswald, Ferrie, and herself were involved in CIA sponsored cancer research to develop a bioweapon to assassinate Fidel Castro. Jim Garrison claimed Ferrie had ties to Oswald, perhaps throught the CIA, and was a link to Oswald and New Orleans businessman, Clay Shaw in a conspiracy to murder President Kennedy. Oliver Stone depicted Ferrie, who died in February 1967, as Garrison's investigation was unfolding, was murdered after being forced to write a suicide note. Ferrie had died, in fact, from natural causes, a brain aneurysm.
Here is a link to Oliver Stone's version of Ferrie's death
Perhaps the wildest allegation against Ferrie is the suggestion that Ferrie was assigned to fly a CIA aircraft, with Lee Harvey Oswald on board, out of the country after the assassination.
Oliver Stone's depiction of David Ferrie's connection to the assassination can be viewed in the link:
One is left to wonder what Stone was chasing from this scene. Aside from stealing from Churchill's commentary on the Soviet Union, Joe Pesci's character is nothing more than rambling confusion, mixed with expletives, surrounded by the initials of government agencies.
Joe Pesci as David Ferrie in JFK
Charles Harrelson
Another figure of interest is Charles Harrelson, estranged father of actor Woody Harrelson. Some in the conspiracy community have suggested the tallest of the three tramps was Harrelson based solely on similar facial features. But who was Charles Harrelson? Harrelson was a man who turned to crime at the age of twenty-two and was convicted of armed robbery in 1960. After his release from prison, Harrelson turned to murder for hire, most notably the murder of U.S. District Judge, John H. Wood and was given to two life sentences in 1979 for this crime.
At the time of his arrest for the murder of Judge Wood, Harrelson admitted killing Wood and stated he was also involved in the assassination of President Kennedy. Although he later denied any involvement in the assassination, conspiracy theorists attempted to connect Harrelson with the president's murder. Jim Marrs, in Crossfire, claimed Harrelson had criminal connections to the CIA and the military.
Here is a link to Harrelson's prison interview on the subject, a rambling monologue that protested his innocence and interjected the notion of CIA involvement, a recurring element of conspiracy theorists.
Tramp on left, Harrelson on right
Lyndon Baines Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th president of the United States, is thought to have been a major player in the assassination of John F. Kennedy by many in the conspiracy community. Based on the fact that Johnson had the most to gain from the removal of the sitting president, many conspirators point to Johnson's caustic personality, his insatiable desire to hold the reins of power, and his yearning to create a legacy on the scale of his mentor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, as proof positive that Johnson was the lead figure in the assassination. Some conspirators contend Johnson was to be dropped from the President's re-election ticket in 1964 and assassination was his only path to the White House.
As improbable as the allegations against Johnson seem, there existed his intense hatred of Bobby Kennedy and the Harvard whiz kids of the president's inner circle, who referred to the vice president as "Rufus Cornpone." According to an ABC special on the late first lady's private thoughts, recorded months after the assassination with Arthur Schlesinger, Jackie Kennedy stated John Kennedy did not think much of Johnson and, one must surmise, the feeling was mutual. Additionally, Mrs. Kennedy stated there was no thought of dropping Johnson from the 1964 ticket, as many conspirators claim, but the Kennedys (John and Bobby) were concerned about the possibility of Johnson running his own campaign for president in 1968. Clearly, Johnson was an outsider, but was that enough motivation to murder Jack Kennedy?
As the Kennedys came from wealth and privilege, Johnson was not the friendless frontier saddle tramp or the uneducated hillbilly that amused the President's cabinet. Johnson had his own influential benefactors from Texas oil and major industrial construction, all of which he manipulated to the cause, the personal success of Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Johnson being sworn in on Air Force One
Johnson was often photographed with a scowl on his face in the presence of John Kennedy.
Johnson's long time friend, Congressman Albert Thomas, back left, was said to wink at Johnson in this photograph.
Johnson protoge Bobby Baker, the self proclaimed 101st senator, was a power broker, a swindler, and a felon.
Johnson was used to getting things done his way. Sen. Richard Russell gets the "Johnson Treatment."
Billie Sol Estes, a Texas con man who made millions on fake farm subsidies and government fraud, was a Johnson supporter. Estes claimed Johnson set up the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Malcolm Wallace, former Johnson press secretary, was accused by many in the conspiracy community of firing the fatal shot in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Johnson's Supporters
Brown and Root Company
One of Lyndon Johnson's biggest supporters was George Brown, co-founder of the Brown and Root construction company. Brown and Root's ties to Johnson were substantial. B & R contributed millions to Johnson and were investigated by the Internal Revenue Service in 1942 for illegal contributions to the young Texas congressman. But political favor went both ways, Johnson was instrumental in obtaining federal funding for a dam project awarded to Brown and Root, in addition to other projects that smelled of Texas pork, the Johnson Space Center, bridges, and major highway construction. As Brown and Root grew to become one of the largest construction firms in the world, Johnson's personal coffer increased to the tune of 100 million dollars.
Brown and Root was not the only Johnson contributor with deep pockets. Texas oil magnates, such as Clint Murchison and H.L. Hunt, stood to lose millions if the Kennedy administration revoked the disputed oil depletion allowances that favored the oil producers with tax credits. The oil producers had one man in the White House they trusted, Lyndon Baines Johnson. Some in the conspiracy community claim the murder of President Kennedy was funded by oil interests.
Malcolm Wallace
Wallace, Mac for short, was interconnected with Lyndon Johnson and the Kennedy assassination by an extremely complex set of allegations. Wallace, a Department of Agriculture economist and a Johnson disciple, traveled to Texas in 1951 to visit his family and involved himself with John Douglas Kinser, a 33-year-old operator of an Austin golf course who, by some accounts, was having an affair with Wallace's wife and the estranged sister of Lyndon Johnson, Josefa. Wallace was convicted of murdering Kinser and received the incredibly light sentence of five years, sentence suspended, purportedly at the behest of Lyndon Johnson.
Wallace was implicated in the assassination of John Kennedy by a fingerprint found on a box in the "sniper's nest" on the sixth floor of the TSBD Building. Among the boxes that contained Lee Harvey Oswald's fingerprints was an unidentified print. That print was identified by A. Nathan Darby, a 39-year veteran of the identification section and photography laboratory of the Austin Police Department, as belonging to Malcolm Wallace. The FBI said the print did not belong to Malcolm Wallace.
Bobby Baker
Baker was a senate staffer who became an advisor to Lyndon Johnson. When Johnson first met Baker, shortly after winning his senate seat, Johnson asked, "Mr. Baker, I understand you know where all the bodies are buried over here. Is that right?" Johnson and Baker quickly became friends.
Baker was an influence peddler, he traded food, drink, and provided sexual favors from Washington's lovely ladies for votes and government contracts from influential Washington insiders. Baker was not above bribery and diversion of government funds to his own businesses. Curiously, Baker's Ocean City, Md. hotel, the Carousel, had the same name as Jack Ruby's place in Dallas. As Baker's personal interests fell under government scrutiny, he resigned his position as secretary to the majority leader and fell from grace.
Billie Sol Estes
Another curious member of the Johnson camp was Billie Sol Estes. Estes was a fast-talking swindler who made millions on nonexistent chemical tanks, cotton allotment schemes, and fraud while he made huge payoffs to politicians. The downfall of Billie Sol Estes resulted from an investigation by Department of Agriculture investigator Henry Marshall. Marshall had uncovered the illegal cotton allotment schemes and, according to Barr Mcclellan, author of Blood, Money, and Power: How LBJ Killed JFK, Estes sought Johnson's help with quenching the investigation.
The uncompromising Marshall was found dead on his Texas ranch, the victim of five gunshot wounds. Marshall's death was initially declared to have been a suicide, however, the cause of death was later changed to a homicide after Marshall's body was exhumed and an autopsy performed. Henry Marshall's killer, according to McClellan, was Johnson's hireling, Malcolm Wallace.
Lyndon Johnson, the quintessential politician, probably used Billie Sol Estes for as much as he could, then left Estes out in the cold once his legal problems came to light. It is unlikely Johnson sanctioned a murder to protect another man from going to jail, LBJ probably cut him loose from the fold. The same was true of Bobby Baker. Malcolm Wallace, on the other hand, presented Johnson with a different set of problems, problems that possibly led straight to the assassination of the president.
Wallace, according to Billie Sol Estes, had murdered eight people, including John F. Kennedy, on the orders of Lyndon Johnson. It is also true that Estes made these claims in an attempt to save his own hide. Estes' accusations came at a time when he sought pardon from jail and freedom from further prosecution for his own misdeeds and at a time when the principles were all dead. Many close to the case suggested Estes was a nothing more than a "pathological liar."
Madeline Duncan Brown
The strange and elusive story of Lyndon Johnson's alleged involvement in the assassination of John F. Kennedy has been related over the years by Madeline Duncan Brown. According to Brown, she and Johnson were involved in a long-term affair that resulted in a son. Brown further claimed, on the evening of November 21, 1963, at a gathering at the home of Clint Murchison, Sr., attended by many wealthy and powerful figures in Texas politics, Johnson told her, "After tomorrow, those goddamn Kennedys will never embarrass me again. That's no threat. That's a promise."
Brown's claim of Johnson's threatening remark has since come under re-examination. Brown maintained those in attendance at the Murchison home included Johnson, Murchison, Richard Nixon, and J. Edgar Hoover. According to an article by Hugh Aynesworth, published in the Dallas Morning News in November 2012, none of the afore-mentioned individuals were in Dallas that evening except Nixon. Nixon, however, was attending a bottling convention and was not present at the Murchison home.
Madeline Duncan Brown, LBJ's supposed longtime lover.
Central Intelligence Agency
Among the throng in the conspiracy community, there may be no greater suspected culprit in the Kenndey assassination than the CIA. The CIA, according to Jim Garrison's allegations, was the lead element in the Kennedy assassination and CIA involvement remains difficult to refute. The CIA, much like North Korea, is closed to external examination and, even with recent releases of classified documents, the conspiracy community cried foul when nothing of substance was revealed. More government cover-up was the mantra of the day.
The charges against the CIA are tied to involvement in the overthrow of foreign governments under Allen W. Dulles' leadership of the agency from 1953 to 1961. Under Dulles, the CIA installed the regime of Mohammad Reza Pahlevi in Iran in 1953, perpetrated the overthrow of a legally elected government in Guatemala in 1954, and, as Lyndon Johnson once related, carried out "murder for hire all across Central America."
The split between the CIA and the White House arose after the failed invasion of Cuba by anti-Castro forces at the Bay of Pigs, a failure that reduced the credibility of the CIA to the point of reconstruction of the top leadership. Dulles and many key officials were removed from office and President Kennedy declared he would "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds."
Kennedy did not splinter the CIA and, after inquiry into the agency's practices, methods, affairs, and policies there was no presidential recommendation of congressional oversight of the CIA.
Allen W. Dulles, CIA Director 1953-1961
The usual suspects
The principle CIA operatives generally considered among the most likely suspects include E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, and David Morales. Hunt, according to his own writings, was an upper level CIA operative who helped plan the overthrow of the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenez. Hunt was reportedly bitter about the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion and conspirators point to this fact alone as evidence of his connection to the assassination.
Hunt's involvement in the Kennedy assassination comes to us from a deathbed confession given to his son, Saint John Hunt. According to other Hunt family members, the "confession" was designed solely to return financial gain and had no substance in truth. But, the conspiracy community continued to link Hunt with the assassination by his resemblance to the smallest of the three tramps, allegations that were made by individuals with no training in facial recognition or formal background in criminal investigation.
Hunt's more bizarre activities stem from his post-CIA work in the Nixon White House. Watergate aside, Hunt reportedly forged documents linking John F. Kennedy directly to the order to execute Vietnamese President Diem and his brother, Nhu, in order to stir anti-Democrat Catholic sympathy. Hunt had been ordered by the Nixon inner circle to link George Wallace assailant, Arthur Bremer, to the Democratic party by planting George McGovern campaign material in Bremer's apartment. However, the FBI cordoned off Bremer's apartment before Hunt could plant the materials. Later, during the Watergate investigation, Hunt attempted to extort funds from the Nixon Administration for his legal fees. Hunt, former CIA operative, clearly chose to back the wrong horse.
The final Hunt conspiracy is the Death of Hunt's wife, Dorothy, who died in a plane crash in 1972. Saint John Hunt claimed his mother's death was a conspiracy perpetrated by the CIA to destroy the aircraft. He claimed the FBI, Air Traffic Controllers at Midway Airport, and the NTSB all had a hand in the disaster. The findings of the NTSB indicated the plane crashed short of Runway 31L at Chicago's Midway Airport due to the "captain's failure to exercise positive flight management during a non-precision approach...where level flight could no longer be maintained." Aviation jargon for the cockpit crew's screw-up.
Here is a link to St. John Hunt's grotesque and ludicrous accusations.
Hunt and tramp later identified as Gus W. Abrams
David Morales
David Morales became the focus of investigation by Gaeton Fonzi, an investigator for the House Select Committe on Assassinations in the late 1970s. Fonzi, a critic of the Warren Commission, wrote in his book, The Last Investigation, of a second-hand story of Morales' assertion of a deep hatred for President Kennedy because of his failure to support the anti-Castro troops at the Bay of Pigs when the invasion faltered. Fonzi stated Morales had to "watch the men he recruited and trained get wiped out because of Kennedy." Morales confided to friends during a drunken tirade the dubious and oft quoted assertion that, "we took care of that son of a bitch, didn't we?" Morales, at the time of this claim, had a reputation for drinking and talking too much.
Larry Hancock, author of Someone Would Have Talked, made a persuasive case for acceptance of Morales' statement. He suggested Morales, under the influence of strong drink, succumbed to the alcohol, much like sodium pentothal, and told the truth. But Morales may have been overcome by machismo and claimed celebrity for a deed never committed.
John Newman, former military intelligence officer and history professor, another of the CIA conspiracy pundits, argued in his book Oswald and the CIA that the intelligence agency was guilty of negligence and irresponsibility in the handling of Oswald's case, but not connected to conspiracy. Morales was never mentioned in this book.
Many men had reason to see the President dead, Lyndon Johnson, organized crime, Texas oil interests, and others. But there remains only supposition and outright fantasy from the conspiracy community.
David Morales
Frank Sturgis
Frank Sturgis was named by E. Howard Hunt as a participant in the "Big Event" of November 22, 1963. As previously stated, Hunt's deathbed confession has been rejected by serious researchers and, with respect to Sturgis, credible witnesses placed him in Miami on the day the President was shot. But Sturgis was an interesting character, a wanderer, soldier of fortune, and CIA hireling.
Sturgis, according to his own testimony to the Church Committee, served in the Marine Corps during World War Two, spent post war time in the Navy Reserve, and entered the Army at the time of the Korean War. He managed a bar in the Norfolk, Virginia area and served as a policeman following his service in the Army. But Sturgis found his true calling in Cuba during the Castro led ouster of the Batista regime as a soldier for hire.
Sturgis, on his own admission, was moved by an inner sense of justice to support the overthrow of the Batista government and joined Castro's rebel forces. He also admitted to being CIA operative, not as a formally hired paid agent, but as a verbally recruited asset. He rose among Castro's inner circle to positions of leadership while providing information to the CIA but became disillusioned with Castro's communist regime and left Cuba. Sturgis supported anti-Castro Cuban organizations in Miami, ran guns to Cuba, and dropped anti-Castro leaflets into Cuba.
Sturgis conceded to investigators involvement in political assassinations while in Cuba but denied any connection to the assassination of JFK. His personal assessment suggested members of Cuban and American organized crime may have committed the murder of the president. There was, according to congressional investigations, no evidence to support the allegation that either Sturgis or Hunt were involved in the Kennedy assassination. Further, there was no evidence to support claims that Sturgis and Hunt even knew each other in 1963. The best the conspiracy community could come up with was the resemblance to the tramps.
